The global impacts have been tremendous in 2017. On November 28, 2017, known as Giving Tuesday, Snow Leopard Vodka and the Snow Leopard Trust UK helped put forward a match to mobilize online donors. Over 700 people from around the world joined this event, bringing together ‘the global community’ for snow leopards. We ultimately raised over $90,000 in Giving Tuesday donations.

Stephen Sparrow, our founder, joined the Snow Leopard Trust Board of Directors in 2017 and spearheaded tireless appeals to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to maintain the snow leopard’s high-priority conservation status. These investments of time, money, and advocacy have translated into a tremendous amount of progress for snow leopard protection. Thanks to you, ongoing research across five countries has brought a better understanding of snow leopard populations in key regions, and we can now see changes and trends not previously apparent.

True to his character, Stephen’s impact did not end with writing checks and letters! He also spent 10 days volunteering in the field, assisting our Kyrgyz Program Director in setting up more than 30 camera traps in the Sarychat-Ertash reserve this year. These cameras are a key component of the Snow Leopard Trust’s ongoing population monitoring in this snow leopard stronghold.

With your support, we have maintained community conservation programs in five countries and for the last three years, we have no evidence of snow leopards killed in partner communities. These community-protected areas may be home to approximately 500 snow leopards—that’s 500 cats safer thanks to Snow Leopard Vodka.

For comparison, a recent report by an organization called TRAFFIC estimates up to four snow leopards are killed each week across the range. You are maintaining new Protected Areas and Nature Reserves specifically for snow leopards, and on a global scale, you have supported the Global Snow Leopard & Ecosystem Protection Program (GSLEP), a unified survival strategy ratified by all 12 snow leopard range countries. A recent Global Forum meeting held in Bishkek drew unprecedented high-level political support for snow leopard conservation, and large-scale international attention from media, business, government, and the science community. We would like to thank everyone who helps support our cause, even just one bottle at a time. We can’t thank you enough. Cheers to Conservation!